Scenes from the Pirate Life
by Trash Opossum
Summary: Who's Vox? Well, Vox was just one of the original members of Blackbeards crew. Was. (T, for swearing and violence.) ((Hold tight; being rewritten))


Vox disembarked from the trade ship, waving a short goodbye to her bunkmate. She waved back, before heading to unload the ship.

Malt island was located in East Blue, a touch above the border of the grand line. It was fairly warm, though not blazing. The port town before her was populated heavily. With pirates. In between that were some shady looking singulars and rough tradesmen.

Unsurprisingly, Malt island was known for it's fabulous drinks. So the first course of action was for Vox to duck into one of the weathered bars and have a seat on one of the wooden stools.

"Vodka, just a jigger." She said to the bartender. "And a shot of that." She pointed to a bottle sitting against the wall behind the bartender.

"Good choice." The man said, pouring vodka unmeasured into a glass. "If ya don't mind my asking, what's your name?"

"Vox." She answered, shooting her vodka.

"I thought I recognized you... just put you up on the wall yesterday. Marines dropped off the new wanted posters."

She glanced across the bar to a large wall of faces haphazardly plastered up. And right in the lower right was her own. The posters were so squished together that the '5,000,000' under her face was hidden.

"I reckon I'm not high stakes."

"Some never even get bounties before they die. You got more than they did."

"Hmph." She downed the shot.

"Meet a lot of wannabe pirates out in these islands." The bartender leaned on his bar, "Being so close to the Grand Line invites a lot of trouble. Especially for loners."

"What'r you tryin' to say?" Vox narrowed her eyes.

"Nothing." The bartender straightened up again, "But if I were you, I'd find myself a crew. Quickly." Then he shrugged, "but I'm not you."

"Hmph." Vox repeated. As she exited the bar the way she came in, she ran right into what felt like solid rock. She stumbled back a step, looking up to the hulking brute of a man in front of her.

"Watch where you're going, little girl." The stranger growled, eyes narrowing under a mask.

She snarled, and rolled her eyes with a quick side step before the larger man could push her aside. Dropping in his wake was a few stray papers. Vox lifted one, wondering what a bruiser like him could possibly be advertising.

'Join Blackbeard's crew! Fight begins at midnight in the old church.' The entire thing was handwritten, and poorly at that. In fact, it was actually written like this: 'Join Blackbeerds cru! Fite begins at midnite in the old cherch.' On the bottom was a shakily drawn jolly roger. Pirates, no doubt. Whoever the captain was, he didn't have much of a name if he was advertising that he needed a crew member.

'If I were you, I'd find myself a crew.'

Jumping up to be on someone's crew wasn't exactly the best sounding idea. Especially if fight meant 'deathmatch' and not just until someone says uncle. Though if the competition was largely empty headed thugs then she could probably win. Especially if most of them had no Devil Fruits.

Then again, showing off wasn't always a desirable action.

* * *

Since when was it a crime to watch some bruisers duke it out anyway? Vox decided to go and see what this fight was all about. She pocketed the flier and made her way to the old church.

Finding the entrance was cake; the guy she had run into outside the bar was sitting by it, looking ready to knock some heads.

"Hey! You're the little broad I hit at the bar!"

Vox produced the poster from her pocket and shook it a little in his direction. He slapped his palm onto his forehead, and dragged it down his face to catch his lower lip.

"This wasn't an invite for weaklings like you. Beat it!"

Vox balled up the paper and tossed it at him before ignoring him to his face and heading inside. 'Weaklings like me! I reckon we'll see about that!' She grumbled internally.

"Fine! Go get yourself killed then!"

Inside was a throng of people shuffling down the narrow hall. Most of the people were large, of varying heights, and making vague threats at each other.

The hallway smelled dank, though it was old and seemed to have water leaking in from the roof. It dumped them out into a much larger room, which everyone dispersed into. It was dark, but not so dark that Vox couldn't see everyone. Backing up, she did a quick headcount and found about fifty or sixty. She came to an abrupt stop when he legs met something hard, and turning around revealed a stack of old pews was taking up the wall space.

"Zehahaha! Anyone who wants to back out now better make for the door!"

While the voice was jarring, not a soul moved to look. The door closed. Wings beat overhead, everyone began to search the dark above but whatever it was could not be seen. When it grew quiet- save for the grumbles of a few in the dark- the voice spoke again.

"It's to the death! Have at it!"

Not seconds after, a gunshot rang and a shorter man some few feet from Vox went to the ground. She drew her weapons- two sharpened bones from something long dead, and began to slice throats from behind.

Across the room she could hear gruff yelling and the cracking of bones as the largest of the group quickly rose in rank. Heads were crushed, between hands and beneath feet. Cut off cries would echo now and then. Her heart began to pound on her ribs.

The room quickly became a hazard to the living; bodies became roadblocks in the dark and blood covered the tile murals under their shoes. For a moment, when things became still and the fighting had left only six or seven, there was a standoff.

Heavy breathing filled the room, all from the mouth as the smell of death was too strong for the nose. Vox's hair and hands were sticky with blood from the constant spray from her own killing spree. The smallest left- he could only be five foot- moved first, only to be clotheslined by a taller man and beat with the butt of a gun. The rest followed suit.

And then there were two; Vox, and the largest man of the bunch. He was taller than her, and that was saying a bit. He cracked the knuckles of his ape-ish hands. With one of her weapons buried in the chest of a woman, she took a step back.

She still had a trump card though. But wasting it would be fatal. Her hand tightened around her remaining knife.

"Little girl, you're far from home." He growled, cracking his neck.

Vox spat, "You ain't know that."

The bruiser charged at her, diving to swing out in an effort to grab her. She sidestepped, burying her last knife into his lower leg. He howled, already struggling to stand on it. Thinking she had crippled him a bit, Vox was caught off guard when he body checked her across the wet floor. She slid a few feet, now sopping with blood.

While he pulled the bone from his leg, she reset herself and stayed low.

The second charge, this time more animalistic than the first. She stayed steady, holding out a hand. She breathed in. He jumped.

"Back Breaker!"

A loud crack, followed by a cryless thump, ended the fighting. Protruding from the back of the last man was his own spine, broken in half. The trump card.

As she came down from the last of her adrenaline rush, she could hear someone clapping. Looking at where it was coming from, she could see a figure sitting up on a stone pulpit. A large figure, a few heads taller than her if she was estimating right.

"What a twist ending, how heartless!"

Sitting back on a dingy organ behind the speaker was the bouncer she had seen outside. He lurched forward quick enough that Vox raised her arms a bit, as the organ let out a few off-key notes.

"You're that little chick! I can't believe you won!"

She let her arms fall again, tired now that her blood rush was gone. Searching the rest of the area she could see another man, and what looked like an enormous horse- though she wasn't entirely sure.

"What's her name?" Asked a passive voice from above.

Vox looked up, and saw a man sitting in the recessed gallery, his legs dangling freely. He seemed to be holding a sizable weapon.

"So, out with it. What's your name?" The frontmost man- who Vox began to assume was the captain- pushed.

"Vox."

For a moment, no one spoke. They seemed to be sharing some looks of either doubt or confusion. Or both. The captain slid off the pulpit and onto the stone floor. She had been right; once he was down the step, he was only a few heads above her. He examined her face over.

"You're the smallest person to try and join me!" He finally called in a manner suggesting scrutiny.

"I reckon so," she agreed. "Ain't by more than a foot though!"

"I guess I wasn't expecting a girl to win. Or to show up even!"

"I didn't give her an invite, that's for sure!" The bouncer behind him grunted.

"But she's here, isn't she? If you didn't invite her and she still knew then I'd say fate is playing a hand here." The voice from the gallery echoed.

"Mm, she must be lucky to come out on top." This voice was followed by a bout of coughing.

"Are we going to introduce ourselves or just keep talking about her?" This voice came from almost directly above.

Looking up Vox could see a figure inside the open arches of the vaulted ceiling, perching. The few around the pulpit sauntered up to their captain, and the man from the gallery jumped down followed by the one from the arch.

"Jesus Burgess..." growled the bouncer.

A hacking cough, "Doc Q. The doctor." A pitiful neigh followed- she was right earlier about the horse- along with a couple weak clips of a hoof. "Sorry, and Stronger."

"I'm Van Auger." The man from the gallery said with a bored drawl.

A sharp click preluded the fourth man, "Lafitte."

"And I'm Blackbeard. _Captain_ Blackbeard. But call me Teach." The front man grinned, showing several missing teeth. "You want to be a pirate, girl?"

"I reckon so." Vox nodded, brushing some of the now dried blood from her short hair. "I won, yeah?"

"Zehahaha! If the strongest of the bunch was you, then you're destined to be one."

"We can't argue with fate." Van Auger mused.

"Even if you could, it's still up to our captain." A few more clicks from Lafitte's direction.

"That's a lot of blood. You're lucky it isn't yours... Is it?" hawked Doc.

"I reckon not," Vox shook her head, not feeling any particular pain other than some bruises. "Ain't feelin' bad or nothin'."

The small talking continued, for a good long while until a light began to fill the stained glass windows. Colors filtered down into the blood and gore, painting it all as if it weren't a murder scene.

With dawn they began to make their way from the abandoned halls. The talking went on all the way to a ship- which looked more like a raft- and still on the ship. After Vox had scraped away the blood of the dead, the talking went on into the day.

And by the time she could sleep without worrying that all of this was a trap, she felt a little less like a mass murderer.


End file.
